


Another State of Mind

by anxiouswerewolf



Category: Paper Girls
Genre: F/F, Graphic Language, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 05:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5993947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiouswerewolf/pseuds/anxiouswerewolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mac goes out of her way to be homophobic, but just to fit in and make sure that nobody gets any ideas about what she might be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another State of Mind

**Author's Note:**

> I found it criminal that there was no Paper Girls fanfiction when the series has been out five months already, so I decided there was no better to create the first one... with unrequited lesbian love, of course. Not the last from me in this department either.

Sitting in her room and hiding behind the stacks of tomorrow's newspapers, Mac blares the Social Distortion loud enough that it'll kill her hearing for a couple hours when she's supposed to go to bed. It's not her favorite band in the world, but it's the loudest, and that's all she needs at night when her stepmother's drinking and causing a storm downstairs. The band is a gift to keep her out of that world and inside her mind, where she's with the girl with curly hair and a hockey stick in her hands. They had crossed routes a few times in Mac's first days of delivery, and the girl had always smiled at her. Mac's first Halloween they actually talked.

"You okay?" The girl had asked, their route illuminated only by streetlights.

"Yeah, why?"

"Newbies sometimes get harassed. by the high school boys. Egged, grabbed, whatever. They're just messing around, but it's scared a bunch of my friends off of delivery."

"That ever happen to you?"

"Got close tonight. A couple kids in hockey masks chased me down the block, but they're not the only ones with gear," the girl said, patting the stick she carried with her.

"Maybe we could team up for tonight, then," Mac suggested.

"Watch each other's backs through our routes." The girl smiled and they rode together through the night, talking and finding out more about each other. The girl's name was KJ, she didn't go to the same public school as Mac, and she was, as far as Mac was concerned, perfection. From then on they actually said hi whenever their routes crossed, and if one got finished early she would ride a few blocks with the other. The next Halloween another girl offered to team up with them, a Catholic-schooler named Tiffany, and Mac allowed it through gritted teeth and white knuckles because it made KJ happy to see it. Tiffany was fine, but she was little more than a distraction.

Tonight, the sounds of Mommy's Little Monster rattling her brain, Mac mulled over what KJ had told her on their ride today. She had gotten finished with her route and accompanied Mac, edging in with a simple comment. "You're the only person who really calls me Kaje, you know."

Mac nearly mispedaled and fell over, apologizing over herself. "I can stop if you want!" She said, cigarette falling out of her mouth in dismay, but KJ laughed.

"No, I like it. Tiffany's even started calling me that now, but you're just the one who thought of it."

"I just like getting one syllable to work with, you know? Mac. Kaje. Easier that way." She tried to recover, but it was too late, and she avoided looking at KJ as she tossed the next paper over, hoping her blushing could be chalked up to the cold and nothing else. Stony Stream wasn't San Francisco, and she was judged enough as it was. Giving up on what any of it meant, Mac shut off the music, threw a pillow over her head to block out the swearing beneath her, and fell asleep.

~*~

For all her other faults, Mac usually got to school before anyone else. Getting up at four in the morning to deliver the paper got her up with a way that couldn't get her back to sleep, and in any case the last thing she wanted to do was spend more time at home than absolutely necessary. So every morning she arrived as soon as the doors opened, and loitered around wherever she wouldn't be kicked out until class started.

To say that Mac had few friends was an understatement, but every so often somebody got lonely enough or curious enough to talk to her. Such a thing happened today as two girls entered early, ones she recognized as Sara and Jen. "Are you still with Jake? Cause I was thinking we could double date this Sunday!" Mac made a sound like a cat throwing up at the idea of these twelve-year-old girls double-dating on Valentine's Day.

"What was that?" Sarah growled.

"Forget about it. She's a dyke anyway." The rumor had been going around for months, and Mac didn't know or particularly care how it started, because no matter what it wasn't true. She just hadn't found any guys yet who weren't total perverts or douchebags, and that seemed unlikely to change. Just because girls were prettier and nicer didn't mean anything.

"Believe whatever you want. Doesn't make it true." After all this time Mac still didn't believe in backing down from a fight.

"Really? Then tell us what guy you like," Jen provoked.

"Doesn't go here."

"One of those private school fags?" Sara snorted. "Don't think those feelings are reciprocated.

"Please, I saw Jake giving head in the boys' bathroom two weeks ago. Don't let him give you AIDS."

"What were you doing in the boys' bathroom, dyke?"

"Fucking my eighth-grade boyfriend." Blood forming at the crescent-shaped wounds of her nails digging into her fists, Mac put her headphones back on and turned up the Social Distortion again, finding some other place to loiter, not hearing whatever they were saying literally behind her back. Whatever they said, it wasn't true. It couldn't be.


End file.
